Out In the Garden


It was wonderfully cool this am, so while E mowed, Georgia and I headed out to the gardens. I finished cleaning up the bed of potatoes we harvested for market Saturday, cleaned out two of the strawberry beds, consolidating the big, healthy plants into one bed. I just headed out again, and planted the potato bed with carrots and beets, and half the strawberry bed with arugala, the other half mesclun mix. I also threw in some newer pumpkin seeds in the hills that seemed to fail (I think the seed was bad), and a few rows of radishes. I've never tried growing them when it's this hot, but I have the seed to spare for an experiment. Harvested side shoots of broccoli for dinner tonight, and used the shears to trim between the tomatoes and cukes to give them better air flow as the fruit matures. It's tempting to pick the ripe tomatoes every time I go out, but I'm holding out - they do better staying on the vine till at least Wednesday if we're taking them to market.


A mama robin has a new clutch of eggs on a low, low branch by our faucet, so I've been checking in on her every morning when I water the animals. Two of her eggs have hatched so far.

In other natural history news :) Georgia and I found an amazing caterpillar while out picking blueberries this week...even bigger then a tobacco hornworm, and covered in red, yellow, and blue spikes. A little research showed it to be a immature cecropia larva - they turn into the largest moth in the US with a six inch wingspan. Apparently the red horns on the front of the body turn yellow as the caterpillar nears maturity - I can't imagine how big they are then, this one was already at least four or five inches long!

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Posted: Sun - July 23, 2006 at 06:48 PM        

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